Many products, such as cars, are illustrated to customers by preprinted brochures. Car dealerships, for example, have glossy brochures that show pictures of cars and generic textual descriptions of the cars. A customer may test drive and actually inspect a particular car of interest. The dealership will also furnish the customer with one of the preprinted brochures of the car. The brochure documents and contains information about the car. The customer may refer to the brochure and potentially be quite influenced by it in making a decision regarding whether to purchase the car.
The generic nature of these preprinted brochures, however, may have a negative impact on the customer's ultimate decision of whether to purchase and thus are often not persuasive. Traditionally, only one brochure is available for each car, for example, and every potential purchaser of that car receives the same brochure. These brochures contain glossy photographs of the car in a variety of settings, which may include, for example, a country setting, city environment, golf course, and marina. Next to the photographs, the brochures usually contain generic textual descriptions of the car or potential uses of the car. Finally, the brochures typically contain standard lists of options for the car along with complex pricing charts from which one may calculate a price based on a matrix of options and prices.
The preprinted brochures contain all of these different settings for the car and generic information in an attempt to appeal to any potential purchaser. For example, one customer may enjoy golfing, and the brochure contains a photograph of the car at a golf course to appeal to that customer and influence that customer in his or her decision to purchase the car. Another customer may want to use the car to take long trips which pass through the country, and the photograph in the brochure of the car in a country setting is designed to appeal to that customer.
The brochures also contain standard pricing charts. Since every brochure is generic to any customer, however, it must contain complex pricing charts that include a matrix of options and prices. Furthermore, since prices of the car or options often change, the information in the brochure can easily be out of date. Also, much of the pricing information is not of interest to a particular customer, since the customer will typically be interested in the price for a single, or relatively few, combinations of options for the car.
In containing all of this varied and generic information in an attempt to be "all things to every customer," the preprinted brochures actually are of limited value to any particular customer. The brochures are not customer specific and, therefore, are not particularly appealing or persuasive for any customer. The typical brochure contains much information that is of no value or interest to a particular customer due to the varied and generic nature of the product pictures and textual descriptions. Furthermore, these preprinted brochures are expensive to produce because of the glossy photographs and may be quickly out of date, meaning that either a dealership must discard the brochures or provide customers with "old" brochures.
The present invention solves these problems by utilizing a computer-based system to dynamically create customized, printed proposals for potential purchasers of a product. The system queries a customer to determine his or her interests and desired options. The interests may include a "use" desired by the customer, such as a marina or golf course. The interests may also include the type of information, such as technical, that the customer would like in the proposal. The desired options may include the various features of interest to the customer, such as the type of engine desired.
Based upon the customer's answers to the queries, the system links product pictures, environment pictures, and textual descriptions together in a customized proposal. The system also has the capability to link together other aspects in the proposal, which may include environment text describing the product in a particular setting or environment. The customized proposal, therefore, contains pictures, textual descriptions, and pricing information that is all of interest to and relevant to a specific customer, since all of the pictures and text were linked together based upon the customer's answers.
Since each proposal is customized for a particular customer, each proposal will have a much more persuasive effect in selling the product. Also, if any information about the product changes, such as prices of options, the system information stored in a data base may be simply changed in order to accommodate the new information. Additional textual descriptions or pictures may also be added to the system data base to be used in linking together information for a proposal.
The quality of the pictures produced in these customized, printed proposals can be made comparable in quality to the glossy photographs in prior art proposals due to recent advances in computer printers. Printers such as the Canon CLC-300 produce color computer print-outs that resemble color photographs. These customized proposals, therefore, need not be inferior to prior art proposals in terms of the quality of available pictures for the proposals.
This system for producing customized, high-quality proposals has many potential applications, such as in the car industry. A customized proposal generated by the present invention will have a great appeal to each individual customer and will be an asset in selling the product.